I enclose an extract from the booklet Cooking Food
Without Fire (p. 43, No. 1 of “The Housewife’s Little
Library”, published by the Supreme Economic Council,
Moscow, 1918) and ask you to let me know the results of
the thermos vessel competition announced by the Food
Department of the Moscow
Soviet.[1]

Notes

[1]The extract mentioned by Lenin stated: “...the Food
Department of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ and Red Army Deputies
has announced a competition for thermos vessels of large and
small dimensions. Three prizes will be awarded: for apparatus
of half a =
vedro—10,000
rubles, 5,000 rubles and 3,000 rubles;
for blueprints of apparatus of live vedros—5,000 rubles and 3,000
rubles. Apparatus and blueprints must be presented by October
20, 1918” =
(Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51, p. 434).

In a memorandum presented to Lenin on July 16, 1920, the
Board of the Moscow Consumers’ Society reported that the
competition for thermos vessels ended on October 1, 1918.
Simultaneously with the work of the Competition Commission, the Food
Department began to use thermos vessels made entirely of wood
(plywood and shavings). These vessels were very light—about
32 lbs. for vessels of three vedros—and enabled food to be kept
hot for 18–20 hours.